The Seasonal Atmospheric Response to Projected Arctic Sea Ice Loss in the Late Twenty-First Century

Deser, Clara; Tomas, Robert A.; Alexander, Michael A.; Lawrence, David M.

doi:10.1175/2009jcli3053.1

Cited by 482 publications

(508 citation statements)

References 35 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

409

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Thus, the improper setting of the winter sea-ice reduction in the model might have an impact on the results of the winter atmosphere circulation changes and the related weather events in response to the autumn seaice retreat. The JF responses in our simulation are different from previous studies (Deser et al 2010;Liu et al 2012;Semmler et al 2012) which reported simulated negative winter AO. One of the possible reasons is that the winter sea-ice variations were evolved into the model simulations in those studies.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…Since there is no perturbation of the boundary conditions from mid December to early August and the atmosphere processes are short persistent, it can be treated that the autumn-winter responses in each year is independent from the responses in previous year. Similar configuration for the boundary conditions has been used in previous studies (Deser et al 2010;Liu et al 2012;Screen et al 2014).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Deser et al (2010) showed the simulated atmospheric response to the projected sea-ice for all seasons (the Arctic Ocean is nearly sea-ice free in September-October). They found an intensified Siberian High during November-December, negative AO during January-February (JF) and increased winter precipitation over northern Eurasia and North America.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Atmospheric response to the autumn sea-ice free Arctic and its detectability

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Atmospheric response to the autumn sea-ice free Arctic and its detectability

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Nevertheless, the relative warmth of the land surface in much of the Northern Hemisphere exceeds 1.0ºC. This is consistent with the results of Deser et al (2010) who found that heat released from the Arctic Ocean under reduced sea-ice conditions is communicated to the Arctic atmospheric boundary layer by transients. The warming of the Southern Hemisphere land surface is limited except in Antarctica.…”

Section: Annual Mean and Annual Cyclesupporting

confidence: 90%

Impact of ocean model resolution on CCSM climate simulations

et al. 2012

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The current literature provides compelling evidence suggesting that an eddy-resolving (as opposed to eddy-permitting or eddy-parameterized) ocean component model will significantly impact the simulation of the large-scale climate, although this has not been fully tested to date in multi-decadal global coupled climate simulations. The purpose of this paper is to document how increased ocean model resolution impacts the simulation of large-scale climate variability. The model used for this study is the NCAR Community Climate System Model version 3.5 (CCSM3.5) -the forerunner to CCSM4. Two experiments are reported here. The first experiment (i.e., control) is a 155-year present-day climate simulation using a 0.5º atmosphere component (zonal resolution 0.625º meridional resolution 0.5º) coupled to ocean and sea-ice components with zonal resolution of 1.2º and meridional resolution varying from 0.27º at the equator to 0.54º in the mid-latitudes. The second simulation uses the same atmospheric model coupled to 0.1º ocean and sea-ice component models. The simulations are compared in terms of how the representation of smaller scale features in the time mean ocean circulation and ocean eddies impact the mean and variable climate. In terms of the global mean surface temperature, the enhanced ocean resolution leads to a ubiquitous surface warming of about 0.2 o C. The warming is largest in the Arctic and regions of strong ocean fronts and ocean eddy activity (i.e., Southern Ocean, western boundary currents). The Arctic warming is associated with significant losses of sea-ice in the high-resolution simulation. The SST gradients in the North Atlantic, in particular, are better resolved in the high-resolution model leading to significantly sharper temperature gradients and associated large-scale shifts in the rainfall. In the extra-tropics, the interannual sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) variability is increased with the resolved eddies, but decreases in the deep tropics (i.e., the variance of El Niño and the Southern Oscillation is reduced). Changes in global SSTA teleconnections and local air-sea feedback are also documented and show large changes in ocean-atmosphere coupling.3

show abstract

“…Snow and ice cover have a large influence on both the local and remote climate (Magnusdottir et al 2004;Alexander et al 2004;Koenigk et al 2009;Deser et al 2010;Overland and Wang 2010). The export of freshwater from the Arctic alters the deep water formation in the North Atlantic (Häkkinen 1999;Haak et al 2003;Koenigk et al 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Arctic climate change in 21st century CMIP5 simulations with EC-Earth

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Arctic climate change is analyzed in an ensemble of future projection simulations performed with the global coupled climate model EC-Earth2.3. EC-Earth simulates the twentieth century Arctic climate relatively well but the Arctic is about 2 K too cold and the sea ice thickness and extent are overestimated. In the twenty-first century, the results show a continuation and strengthening of the Arctic trends observed over the recent decades, which leads to a dramatically changed Arctic climate, especially in the high emission scenario RCP8.5. The annually averaged Arctic mean near-surface temperature increases by 12 K in RCP8.5, with largest warming in the Barents Sea region. The warming is most pronounced in winter and autumn and in the lower atmosphere. The Arctic winter temperature inversion is reduced in all scenarios and disappears in RCP8.5. The Arctic becomes ice free in September in all RCP8.5 simulations after a rapid reduction event without recovery around year 2060. Taking into account the overestimation of ice in the twentieth century, our model results indicate a likely ice-free Arctic in September around 2040. Sea ice reductions are most pronounced in the Barents Sea in all RCPs, which lead to the most dramatic changes in this region. Here, surface heat fluxes are strongly enhanced and the cloudiness is substantially decreased. The meridional heat flux into the Arctic is reduced in the atmosphere but increases in the ocean. This oceanic increase is dominated by an enhanced heat flux into the Barents Sea, which strongly contributes to the large sea ice reduction and surface-air warming in this region. Increased precipitation and river runoff lead to more freshwater input into the Arctic Ocean. However, most of the additional freshwater is stored in the Arctic Ocean while the total Arctic freshwater export only slightly increases.

show abstract

The Seasonal Atmospheric Response to Projected Arctic Sea Ice Loss in the Late Twenty-First Century

Cited by 482 publications

References 35 publications

Atmospheric response to the autumn sea-ice free Arctic and its detectability

Atmospheric response to the autumn sea-ice free Arctic and its detectability

Impact of ocean model resolution on CCSM climate simulations

Arctic climate change in 21st century CMIP5 simulations with EC-Earth

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About